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Vidali and Philips examine “the haunted relationality of ethnographic archives and anthropology” (64). In doing so, they seek to explore the potential for multimodal installations to underline these troubled relationalities while also drawing new audiences and collaborations to anthropology. They argue that experimental ethnographic installations offer nonlinear forms of communication that can be used to illustrate the relations between fieldwork, archives, re/dislocation and aspiration.

 Vidali & Phillips (2020) argue that experimental ethnographic installations reveal the multidimensional nature of archives that include such contrasting functions and attributes as centralizing/organizing, dynamic/interactive, and accessible/engaging. The authors demonstrate how ethnographic installations are “permanently in process of creation and dispersal with agency and materiality that simultaneously pull toward a centralized coherence and a decentred diversity” (p.

In the general context of ethnographic work beyond archiving, Vidali (in Vidali & Phillips, 2020) describes the “ambivalence and paradox” in the relationship between ethnographic material collections and their fieldwork (p. 71). Vidali describes her struggle to reconcile these paradoxes in her own work, as well as other dilemmas inherent in ethnographic research, such as “ethical dimensions of consent, respect, ownership, stewardship, legacy, and propriety” (p. 71).

The text addresses the reluctances of anthropologists to create ethnographic archives although they keep data materials that haunt them. They argue that anthropological work and archives have a lot in common if we consider Bakhtin’s concept of centripetal and centrifugal pulls. Applying them to language, standardization and normativity can be seen as centripetal pulls. Meanwhile, everyday realities of linguistic diversity are centrifugal pulls.

Vidali, D., & Phillips, K. (2020). Ethnographic installation and “The archive”: Haunted relations and relocations. Visual Anthropology Review, 36(1), 64–89. https://doi.org/10.1111/var.12197

Debra Vidali is an Associate Professor of the Department of Anthropology and Director of Undergrad Research at Emory College of Arts and Sciences. Their research specializations include experimental ethnography, ethnographic theater-making, and democracy & Civic engagement. Kwame Phillips is an Associate Professor of the Department of Communications and Media Studies at John Cabot University. Their research specializations include sensory media production, ethnographic documentary and soundscapes.

Visual Anthropology review is a journal from the Society for Visual Anthropology and a section of the American Anthropological Association. Its focus is visual studies including “visual aspects of cultural lives and experience, and the use of visual techniques and technologies in anthropological research, representation and teaching” as well as to “explore the potentialities of sensory scholarship”. https://www.visualanthropologyreview.org/about

The main argument draws on Bakhtin’s pulling forces, but also considers contributions from Jackson (1990), Zeitlyn (2012), Smith (2012), and Captlan (2010). From Jackson and Zeitlyn, the authors frames the relationship between researchers and fieldwork ass ambivalent and liminal (71). Yet, the researcher holds power through the agency throughout the research.

The examples used that support the main argument draw from Vidali’s fieldwork in Zambia (1986-90) and Phillips and Vidali’s radio program on original materials. The examples show that coproduction is a key factor to “interrupting the centralizing and decentralizing forces that pull on the archive” (86).

An exemplary quote is “Significantly, there are a number of ways that the body of the archive has weight as an archive of a certain type” (73).